“Come Here Much?”

The late 1950s interview for postulancy (the first formal step toward ordination when I was in college) seemed to go well. Father Peter Blynn, the Boston priest who talked with me, was a sweet, trim guy in his late fifties. Why did I want to be an Episcopal priest, he asked me. Would I be a good one?

The warmth of the Dominican nuns at my Roman Catholic grade school had been a powerful influence, I told him. And in the third grade, a Dominican priest came to visit. The nuns explained that he was not only a priest, but a teacher. (At home as a very young child, playing school and teacher with teddy bears was favorite entertainment. My bedroom altar, encouraged by the Sisters, within view of my pupils, set the stage! My own private school!) I remember the enthusiasm. That's what I wanted to do -- become a priest AND a teacher! So I grew up with the idea. In time, that kind of childhood career conviction needs to mature or be discarded.

In my family there was eagerness about going to our parish, Christ Episcopal Church, Waltham, Massachusetts, on Sundays. It was something I really looked forward to, because the congregation was an extended family, and the rector was wonderful. At Young People's Fellowship on Sunday nights there was real fellowship; friendships developed as we planned picnics and other recreational activities. As a teenager, I was somewhat active at the diocesan level, too.

Feeling different from other boys as early as I did, there was something about the Christian stories that had meaning. The Gospel message helped me cope with, adjust to whatever came along, no matter how odd I felt. And, I always felt odd – right to my earliest memories.

Then at Trinity College, Hartford, a professor, Dr. Edmond La B. Cherbonnier, who is a deacon in the Episcopal Church, liberated me to think about religion, gave me academic tools, and clarified a biblical outlook for my life. He made himself available hour after hour for probing, intellectual conversations. He went deeper than the words of Scripture to its basic themes about God, reality, human nature, truth, and ethics. (In 2004 we are still in touch - by email, while he and his wife Phyllis live in London and Connecticut. In an October exchange there was a very natural opening for my long avoided self-disclosure. His response was most caring.)

During those years the realization gradually came: "I want to be a Christian." We were between chaplains at the college, and a retired bishop was interim chaplain. I went to see him and told him of this wonderful discovery.

"Bishop Whittemore, I was confirmed at eleven, but it didn't mean a damn thing." (I even lost a confirmation ring my parents gave me - for which I've always felt guilty.) "Now Christ's teachings do!"

the closet referred to below

crypt chapel, Trinity College Chapel

After we talked for a while, the bishop got up from behind his desk, and I thought, "Is he going to scold me because I put down my confirmation?" He walked over to this gigantic closet and put on his full episcopal vestments. Then he said, "Come with me."

We went down into the crypt chapel of the college, and the bishop renewed my confirmation vows. It was incredible! I hadn't gone to him asking for this, but he sensed the importance of my realization, of being "born again." To this day I am moved whenever I think of this very special Service.

But why be ordained? Because I wanted to be a celebrant of the sacraments. The mystery and awe in the liturgy...it's a beautiful way of feeling closer to God and serving God and the Church.

Now that I had convictions to articulate and share about Christianity, I wanted to preach and teach. And I wanted to offer the intimate pastoral care to a congregation that people expect from a priest. The stately ordination charge in the 1928 Prayer Book fit: "...to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach, and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord's family; to seek for Christ's sheep..."

Why the Episcopal Church? Because of the intellectual breadth and freedom, within the contexts of the Bible, Prayer Book, and Canon Laws. We Episcopalians find our unity in our acts of worship, not in uniformity of doctrine and moral convictions. This is so important to me; the older I grow, the more profound it seems.

There's something else that some men might consider negative. The priesthood is an outlet for what I consider positive "feminine" qualities within us all -- the artistic and the dramatic ones. Caring is OK. The Church promotes gentleness and caring usually thought of as feminine in our culture.

And, yes, I told Father Blynn, "I can probably be as good a priest as anyone." As an only child, I always held the somewhat naïve assumption that a person could accomplish whatever he set out to.

Father Blynn smiled encouragingly. His accent was very “Boston.” Was he one of those Episcopal priests, I wondered, who has spent a year in England and returned to America sounding as if he had been born in Buckingham Palace? They have an acquired graciousness about them from chanting Evensong and sipping sherry.

No. This man was not that affected. He was a well-respected, holy priest, and I could tell from his kindness to me that he was a fine pastor. In fact, I felt a special, fond affinity to him. Was he gay? There were homosexual priests, I was beginning to realize; someone had scornfully referred once to effeminate, Anglo-Catholic types as "a club." Father Blynn was not swishy, but he did have some of the traits of an aging queen.

After the interview, I worried again about the outcome. My school and college grades were okay, not

spectacular, a failing grade here and there, and friendly advisers and summer employers had written the customary glowing recommendations. But did the required, psychological examination reveal my sexual orientation? From somewhere in my clouded past, had someone passed on the horrifying suggestion that maybe, just maybe this personable young man who aspired to the priesthood was homosexual? That meant (in the 1950s) that he was immoral in the eyes of the Church and, according to the psychology textbooks of the day, mentally ill besides. I didn't feel immoral in the eyes of God, and most of the time I didn't feel sick in the head. I did have ulcer symptoms now and then. Who wouldn't in my circumstances?

While considering the priesthood, no bells had rung. I hadn't been struck by a vision like Moses and St. Paul. But I did have a sincere conviction about myself and ordained ministry. It "fit" as a vocation, as far as I was concerned, even if some people might be aghast.

When Bob saw how anxious I was after the interview, he put his hands on my shoulders in his wonderful, reassuring way. "Okay," he said. "We'll cheer you up."

I knew what he meant and grinned. We had first met at college, at the freshman orientation picnic on September 14, 1955, and after becoming lovers (though we didn't know the term and any "rules"), we'd sometimes relax by heading to gay locations to be among others in that hidden subculture.

a winter photo of the Public Garden area I met Fr. Blynn

So I headed with Bob to the gay section of the Boston Public Garden, not unmindful that to the Church I longed to serve as a clergyman, homosexual associations were off beam, and sex was worse. I knew from the ulcer that there were anxieties and conflicts I hadn't fully resolved for myself. But what the hell! I was in my early twenties and needed a distraction. Hanging out among gay guys didn't hurt anyone. Did it hurt me? No! The people Bob and I met were usually nice, interesting guys. In a peculiar way, they affirmed my wavering sense that I wasn't crazy.

This particular day was breezy, as I remember. The smell of roasting chestnuts wafted all the way from the street vendor on Beacon Street. The sun was warm, but the biting wind from the Charles River kept my jacket collar up and hands in pockets. Bob was looking for a restaurant or hotel to use the lav.

Up ahead by a great stone fountain, an older man in suit and tie was obviously looking me over. Middle-aged predators (often someone's husband) were not enjoyable to chat with, so I walked cautiously in that general direction.

When I saw his face, my stomach lurched.

"Richard!"

"Father Blynn!" Oh, my God. He's gay, and he was probably cruising. This good man probably had as mixed feelings about himself as I did about me, and might be hostile to an aspiring postulant with a secret like his own.

Maybe I could fake it -- naive kid, who doesn't realize where he is. No dice. This park's reputation was too well known.

"Come here much?" Father Blynn was asking. I felt an invitation coming from him. Better cut it short, before I had to turn him down and hurt his feelings.

"Once in a while...with my friend." That's a gracious way of saying, "Please don't ask me."

That did it. Father Blynn moved away. But first..."Richard, your interview went well, and I'm going to recommend you highly." How nice of him to say that! He must have realized how scared I was.

After he'd disappeared, I sat on a bench and hid behind a newspaper we had picked up. Didn't look up when anyone came near.

"Bob will never believe this," I thought, wishing he'd hurry back. "How did Father Blynn dare to cruise just a few blocks from his church? Did I screw things up? Will he start writing me? How will I handle it if he wants a friendship?" These confusing thoughts were racing through my head.

Maybe he'd joke about me to "the club." "I've got another young queen for the seminary." He didn't seem like a gossipy kind of person. But the information might slip out somehow and could keep me from ever being ordained. The ulcer which a doctor had momentarily tamed sent a sharp pain through my abdomen. For the hundredth time I asked myself, "How did I get this way?"

“Why This?”

Nobody knows what makes a person homosexual; for that matter, no one knows what causes anyone's sexual orientation. It may be a mix of genetic factors and environmental influences. I can't find any relationship with my parents or anything in my childhood home that would propel a person toward homosexuality. Dad was in the armed services when I was a kid, but so were millions of dads during World War II.

The notion that homosexual people had domineering, over-protective mothers and ineffectual fathers has been discredited, debunked. I cannot pinpoint any event or series of events that in and of themselves fixed my sexual orientation.

One of my earliest memories, perhaps from age four, is of kissing a snow man good night. Was that an indication? Would I have kissed a snow woman? As a youngster, I was not effeminate -- not lisping, flamboyant, or wanting to be girl-like. I never wanted to be a girl. However, there was an anxiety about needless physical competition from Day 1. Not every gay individual shares this aversion, as attested to by regional gay baseball and other teams.

waterfront area at Camp O-At-Ka [O-AT-KA's 100 acres feature more than sixty buildings, including screened camper cabins, dining and assembly buildings, athletic facilities, and staff and guest housing. The 1/2 mile of shore line includes a floating swimming dock, a separate diving platform, and areas for waterskiing, windsurfing, kayaking, fishing, and canoeing. All-in-all, I enjoyed myself enormously at the Camp.]

At Camp O-At-Ka, a Maine summer church camp, at ages 8 and 10 I would do anything to get out of morning baseball games. (But I loved to play softball almost daily with loads of relatives during Cape Cod vacations. How I cherish memories of our 4'10" beloved Nana hitting the ball!) I remember hating it at camp if it rained Saturday night and there was indoor competition. Everyone had to be there. It usually meant someone putting on boxing gloves.

One day another kid, actually a friend, and I had an argument and shoved each other around.

"Here's how we'll settle this," a counselor unnecessarily intervened. "You two can fight it out in the ring."

a portion of the Junior Unit

The next Saturday we were in the cabin after supper and a thunderstorm was approaching. The air was damp and electric, and whenever thunder crashed in the distance, I shuddered. Would the counselor remember? The other kid and I weren't angry with each other any longer. I didn't want to punch anyone. It wasn't that I felt physically inferior, it just wasn't part of my wiring.

"Hurry up kids," the counselor shouted. "Let's get out of here before the rain comes."

Ten little boys in shorts and camp t-shirts raced each other out the door and up the hill to the main hall. I lingered behind and ducked back inside, hoping no one would notice.

Sitting on the edge of my cot in the clouded light of dusk, I prayed that attendance would not be taken, that no camper would be sent looking for me. If someone did come, I'd crawl under the cot and hide. I'd rather be

punished somehow for absence than be required to slam a friend in the face - or be pounded on myself. It all seemed so pointless, so sadistic on the part of the counselors. Did they like seeing slender little boys hitting each other?

With the darkness the cold rain came, pounding on the roof. I wondered whether my parents knew how crappy Maine is on a cold, rainy August night in a cabin. (Still reacting in my senior years, I'll stay in nothing less than a Holiday Inn, ever!) After each flash of lightning, I counted seconds to the thunder and jumped when it was close by. What if a heavy tree branch fell through the roof and knocked me out? I was less afraid of being hurt by an “act of God” than being discovered. The thin camp blanket I wrapped around me did little to stop the shivering, or was it trembling?

When the rain let up, I listened miserably to water dripping from the trees, listened for the sounds of wild animals, heard shouts and cheers from the boys in the main hall. Until now I had liked camp, but that night, memories of my own room at home -- student desk, blue curtains and bedspread, pennants on the wall, aquarium and music box -- made me lonely and homesick. I wanted to lie on my back on the comfortable, secure bed in my own house and look up at the reassuring paper moon and stars on the ceiling that glowed magically in the dark. Downstairs the voices of my parents would never be fighting. Mom’s sweet, gentle voice might be adding music to the air.

I sat up, switched on a flashlight and tried to read. Stop. Someone might see the light. There was nothing to do but wait (which has never been my strong point), so to pass the time I peeled strips of bark from the cabin logs beside my cot.

When I heard people coming back, I hurried outside and hid behind the cabin, then mixed in with the stragglers. It was easy to fall asleep that night - relieved to be undiscovered, but curiously sad, too -- I hadn't even been missed, perhaps an unrecognized metaphor for later years.

On another rainy, Saturday night, a kid tried to stay behind with me, but the counselor caught both of us and made us go to the fight. I helped lift the dinner tables back against the walls and carry and stack the folding, wooden chairs. Then I huddled as inconspicuously as possible -- head down, arms clasped around my legs -- in a back row on the floor, well away from the boy with whom I'd argued weeks earlier. The few electric lights in the huge room were dim, and the fire flickered, but I could see counselors put boxing gloves on two scrawny kids, then push them into a cleared space. Holding up their gloves, the boys jabbed awkwardly at one another. And, the counselors cheered and leered.

"Hit him, Robbie!"

"Kill him, Joey!"

Forty or fifty excited campers called out or pounded each other or sweat in the crowded room on a lousy night.

camp chapel

"Why this?" I kept asking myself. How did smashing another person in the face fit in with a church camp, anyhow? Required chapel this morning; required combat this night. At that moment I believed I was the only one there who was repulsed.

Some kids were born battlers, some were just angry all the time, but I realized later than some fought because they were afraid not to. A very few of us found ways of not needlessly competing without being outsiders to the group. As I got older, I felt more and more comfortable saying, "I don't want to do that."

This isn't related directly to my sexual orientation except in the sense of feeling different from the norm....not the typical American boy as idealized. Also, I realized early that although I wanted to be part of the mainstream, I would compromise just so far. I would never even try to conform totally; it wouldn't be me. No one would ever say about me, “He’s all boy,” and that was all right.

****

There was an incident in about the ninth grade.

I would take a trolley and bus to my Waltham home from the Boston Latin School I eventually attended. We were required to wear a shirt and tie, jacket, and slacks. There were a few real clods (really, white trash) in my neighborhood who, I think, resented the family's apparent affluence -- that this goody-goody, bright kid was being sent to a classy school founded in 1635 and whose graduates were typically successful. The two or three, brothers, in the whole group were not close friends. When they were around, not often, it was "Percy" they taunted me with. Nothing of a sexual issue; "faggot" hadn't come into use then, I guess. "Percy" -- kind of a Little Lord Fauntleroy.

I was playing with all the kids on a Saturday when out of the blue, the oldest of those three, a real good-looking bruiser, punched me in the mouth. I quickly went home devastated.

The boy's brother came to the door and said, "We want you to fight my brother."

I said, "For what?!!"

"Because we think you need this sort of thing to toughen you up."

"I am angry with your brother," I said, "but there's no way I'm going to fight him. He's way bigger than I; he'd kill me."

So for months they were often at my bus stop, just hanging around. And I would have to stay on the bus, duck from view, get off at the next stop, and walk the back way home, always on the lookout, terrified of being caught. Of course, I didn't want my parents to know any of this, and as far as I know, they never did. Part of me knew that I was doing the smart thing; part of me felt like a coward. The sense of being different because of an

unwillingness to fight needlessly was reinforced, but I didn't in any way link that with sexual feelings. Anyway, it was an early introduction to the obnoxious klutz factor prevalent among the redneck bubbas of this world.

I’d add that years later (during high school) I jumped out of my car and intervened between a bully and a younger boy, even though I realized that I might get clobbered doing so. I was successful; perhaps neither of them wanted a fight. [In February (2004) when cousin Chip Lyon and his wife Dawn visited us, much to my surprise he mentioned this event. Just a child, he was in the car with me when this happened, and it is something he never forgot. Chip shared that he used it as a model for his own behavior - to intervene to protect - as he grew up. Chip's recollection included more than one boy involved in the bullying.] And, there was another time when a clod my age hurled a random insult toward my mother when we were walking on a sidewalk in Waltham; I remember grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against a wall – and, he ran like hell. I guess it’s my perception of needless “sporty” battles between males that nauseate me. To this day, boxing, professional wrestling, football, and the like are contemptible – along with the fans trying to feel “manly” by their fixation on them. Yes, when it comes to these kinds of activities, I’m proudly an utter snob.

“To Cap The Evening Off”

Having gone to a Roman Catholic elementary school run by Dominican Sisters, I had learned that paying attention to physical needs and appetites was usually sinful, venially or mortally. In the third or fourth grade, the sun was pouring in the window, and I asked, brow dripping with perspiration, "Sister, please may I move my seat?"

"No, Richard. Offer up your discomfort as a sacrifice to God." Here was an example of subordinating the flesh (and no doubt combating the devil).

So in terms of my own sexual awareness, my feelings were, like many survivors of religious schools today and in the past, suppressed and repressed for a long time. Prior to any sexual experimentation or activity with anyone else, even self-gratification or nocturnal emissions would be worrisome, because the nuns had taught that the body should not be enjoyed. Day after day in elementary school, we were taught absolute denial of bodily pleasures.

After hearing about "it" from other boys in the neighborhood, I looked up "masturbation" in the dictionary and found "self-abuse." [Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 1948 edition, says starkly: "self-pollution."] Anxious, I concluded, that the nuns must be correct. I wondered whether there was a danger that "it" detaches if you do it (the word "penis" became a regular part of the American vocabulary in 1993 after one was sliced off by an angry wife, as reported repeatedly for months during dinnertime on most tv newscasts).

Why should a young boy feel guilty? Listen: in elementary school we had mortal and venial sins, and short prayers every day on the blackboard. I don't know why, but these prayers were called "ejaculations." We could work days, perhaps millennia, off purgatory by saying these prayers passionately. An intense "JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!" was one such ejaculation. Morality was approached in a cost-analysis, book-keeping fashion. And who wanted to burn in hell? I had a real concern about being good. That's one reason I preferred the Episcopal Church as I grew up. Our rector didn't constantly hammer us with sin, punishment, and hell. His warm ministry was about the love of God and each other.

****

I dated girls in high school.....my first love was Pat. Then there was Marilyn my first steady...I gave her a ring. There was no serious sexual involvement, just lots of kissing and physical closeness. She was a knock-out! Among all the local guys I hung out with during high school, none had had intercourse. This was the 1950s, remember. In my circles a boy who did would have been looked down on a little bit (and admired, too), and a girl would have been regarded as a slut.

At the Episcopal Church where I was an altar boy from age 8 and eventually president of the high school Young People's Fellowship, I enjoyed planning for parties, the kidding around in a non-aggressive setting, just the general camaraderie as well as the liturgy.

After Young People’s Fellowship on Sunday nights, about 9, it was traditional to go parking with a girl at "The Ducks" - a large pond with a spacious parking area. And so we used to get about four couples and jam into my big, black 1938 Buick sedan (which Dad had bought me around my 16^th birthday). In those days parking was simply smooching (how's that expression for dating me!), and I loved to do that.

However, afterwards we'd drop the girls off, and I'd drive the boys home, and there'd be one or two that I knew would be comfortable with a light sexual involvement to sort of cap the evening off. Nothing intense or terribly intimate. This was not "love making." It was simply an adolescent moment. Yes, we'd been aroused while parking, and "going all the way" with a girl in those days...forget it. Prospect Hill Park in Waltham was a large, wooded state park open until midnight. We'd simply find a secluded place, enjoy brief sexual warmth, and go home.

in Prospect Hill Park

So, during YPF years, I discovered that a pleasurable way to satisfy the sexual feelings I couldn't ignore was to "fool around" (a silly phrase) with one of my male friends. It was safer than sexual intercourse with a girl, even if she were willing. You didn't have to worry about pregnancy, I realized. There weren't all those entanglements -- taking away someone's virginity, pretending to be in love, or getting a disease. So for me, with a male friend, there wasn't any degree of prohibition that there was to sexual intercourse between a "good boy" and a "nice girl."

I suppose with just a bit more guilt and a few more prayers, I could have worked things out with my conscience and been sexually intimate with a woman. In my own mind my Catholic schooling had made sexual experiences with a girl far more serious, clearly mortal, than was recreational sex with another male. Not surprisingly, when the Sisters taught about sins of the flesh, they never so much as hinted that same-sex activities even existed! Intuitively, I concluded, because same-sex pleasures were fleshly and enjoyable, they must be wrong, but only venial at worst. From a Roman viewpoint, was I ever mistaken!

We weren't taught anything about the possible origins of our sexuality by the nuns or in high school. I didn't know during these years that our sexual orientations had already been determined. I had none of the labels, such as "gay" or "homosexual." To me it was just "doing it together." I wasn't embarrassed. No one had been coerced; it wasn't seduction of the unwilling or anyone from a younger age group. Why should I feel guilty, if my buddies didn't? It was an enjoyable experience, and then we went on to other things, like homework, mowing the lawn, part-time jobs, and so on.

We were all dating every Friday and Saturday night, and YPF was Sunday nights. I wasn't using girls as a cover up; I had genuinely fond feelings toward them. With the boys there was the nice feeling of being close to a warm body than you could be morally with the girls. I never felt sexually odd, but I did know that increasingly I enjoyed erotic intimacies with guys. Had I known of bisexuality in its various degrees, I probably would, at that time, have described myself in that broad category.

****

A girl that I dated briefly in the 10th grade had a “reputation,” perhaps undeserved, as a slut. Everyone thought she was gorgeous, and she made it known through friends that she'd like to go out with me. I was on the rebound from someone else and thought, "Why not?" She'd be a badge of dubious status, for a short time. No adolescent male wants his peers to think of him as being too good. The other guys would conclude, "What a hot shot that Dickie Nolan is!" (Fortunately “Dickie” was dropped after high school.)

But she didn't appeal to me at any level. As we stood on her porch saying goodnight, I was wondering, "How do I dump her and get on my way?" To my horror, she came on to me – leaned in too closely and made it clear what she wanted. That was too much for this 10th grader; she seemed cheap. And in those days, an approach from a woman could almost be an assault on your masculinity. The male was supposed to lead the way.

Soon afterwards I did a terrible thing to her, asked her to the sophomore hop and then backed out because someone could go whom I liked better. The poor girl had bought a new dress....her mother was furious.

"What's the big deal?" I wondered. "It's just a dance." Typical teenage boy, center of his own universe, not seeing the emotional impact on the girl. I was awful. I guess there can be no more self-centered a creature than an adolescent male, and certainly in this instance, I was a prime example. As an adult, I've often thought that I'd still like to apologize to her; deserved, residual, guilt! That episode is on my “living with regrets” list.

Noreen's home

Other than the YPF and school chums, there were about four girls in the neighborhood with whom I thoroughly enjoyed spending many Sunday afternoons. Noreen lived in a house shaped like a castle. We'd go over there... Patty sang and played the piano beautifully, as did Noreen. I would hang around, play the piano a bit, enjoying the whole thing.

Dad didn't like it at all. That puzzled me, because I was seeing the experience as the height of macho. "Hey, four girls to myself!" I thought he'd be proud of me. Later I understood his representative viewpoint.

Boston Latin School

But there were emerging difficulties with spending a lot of my time with boys. At Boston Latin, the elite boys' high school I attended, there was one classmate, Rick, I thought was terrific. Blue-eyed, blond, handsome, athletic, and he was, like most others there, really friendly, almost brotherly, toward me. Going out to play soccer one day during gym period, we all got jammed together getting out the door. I was pushed against Rick for maybe 20 seconds and began to tremble. That was embarrassing to me, though nothing was made of it. Immediate running around on the field cooled me down.

Another appealing time which I regularly looked forward to was in German class. My desk was lined up in a row at the rear of the room. You could lift the wooden, initial-carved lid a bit and hide behind it briefly to signal or whisper to a classmate. In the top was a hole for an inkwell, recently made obsolete by the invention of the ballpoint pen. Big windows were on one side of the room, looking down to a bare cement parking lot filled with faculty cars.

Why did I love this class? I disliked German (as well as the Latin and French our classical curriculum demanded). Because Len sat behind me. He was a warm, handsome boy. During most of the class, he'd rub the back of my neck and massage my shoulder. I would sit there soothed beyond words, and on occasion, stirred.

Once the teacher called on me to recite, which was done standing up. My hand went quickly into my pocket to cover up any tell-tale signs. I flubbed the answer and never knew if anyone noticed my predicament. At the time it seemed as if the whole world was going to discover your state of mind and body!

In another class, in front of me sat a loveable, 6 foot 2, magnetic, Irish kid with a ready smile and a great sense of humor. Steve was a lumber-jack type, athletic in appearance, but warm and considerate. One day he was leaning back stretching, and I began to massage his neck and shoulders. I was a little nervous, until he sighed, "Don't stop."

It never dawned on me to attempt sexual involvement with any of my Boston Latin classmates. When one attractive guy did make an overture, I was paralyzed and avoided him.

None of us associated such public touching with homosexuality, with being gay. We didn't have those words, those categories. We knew we weren't perverts -- child molesters. There was no fear of being gay. My relationships were fine. Our yearbook editors selected epigrams for our pictures; mine was "How far the little candle throws its beams." I was really touched by that!

****

Because I was young at graduation, had just turned 17, Mom and Dad sent me to Tabor Academy, a fashionable boarding school, for a year between high school and college.

the Tabor campus

Billy was a sophomore at the school, and he used to follow me around. He always wanted to come to my room. It was a big deal for a sophomore to visit a senior's room! Then he'd want to wrestle, on the bed, gently. I guess he really wanted to be held; nothing sexual happened.

But once my roommate Gene came in and saw us. "I know what you're up to," he said and stalked out. I was mortified at being caught on the bed with Billy.

At the school movies, Billy would sit next to me. We'd let our hands dangle between the chairs--one hand on the other for closeness. Bill was a junior varsity wrestler. During one of his matches (he'd asked me to attend) I was sitting close enough to the ring for him to see me.

"Dick, this is for you," he said, looking right at me with a big smile, quickly pinning his opponent! I was touched by the gift of his victory, but red-faced with embarrassment.

Still, there wasn't the concept of being homosexual. And these boys I've spoken of are, as far as I know, straight men, now married and have kids. I have no idea whether a lot of this was going on among the students or not. To them, this was horsing around -- adolescent, sometimes, I guess, sexual experimentation. To me, it felt more important ...scary.. inviting.. wrong... and so right.

What have I gotten myself into? This is pretty intimate stuff, especially for a woman teased by her own daughters for shying away from the story of the birds and bees.

Dick has lent me a couple of books about homosexuality. One is a sensitive explanation by a professional counselor for relatives and friends; the other is a raunchy exposé by a delightfully outrageous, gay writer. He tells you all you wanted to know about gay sex life and a lot you didn't. It's a surprise to me that such books were available so many years ago.

Some of my misconceptions are common, apparently. Most homosexual men are masculine, not effeminate (as defined by our present culture). As one author explained, the notion that absent or ineffectual fathers or over-protective, domineering mothers are the cause of homosexuality have not held up among the vast majority of behavioral scientists. No one knows the cause, but it's not a matter of voluntary choice, these writers insist. Most gay males don't hate women, they agree with Dick. Gay school teachers by definition are neither pedophiles nor ephebophiles, and they don't try to proselytize. Homosexuality isn't taught or caught. OK. OK. But Dick and I need to discuss that one. I don't see why they wouldn't proselytize. In addition, I'd better consult some other sources, hear from a wider range of opinions.

Misconceptions some people have are downright harmful, so I do want to get them straight. Homosexual people are not mentally ill. The American Psychiatric Association declared that in 1973. They're not child molesters. Child molesters are sick; called "pedophiles," the vast majority of them are heterosexual.

Dick has also lent me scrapbooks and high school yearbooks which substantiate what he says. His childhood was obviously a loving one with a father he was proud of and who was proud of him. Pictures show “Richie” (an endearing name still used by relatives) as a toddler being held by his father or sitting by his side. At five he was perched on his knee. Dick has saved photos of his dad in uniform in World War II and graduation cards from him: "Congratulations! And loving wishes too. For everything in life, Son, that means the most to you."

He is an only child, but his mother appears to have been no more protective than mine was of her one-and-only. As a teenager, Dick probably chafed under motherly restraints, but who doesn't.

"Don't worry," she wrote in a letter when he left home as a young adult. "I won't hold any strings. Dad will see to that." In every picture Dad and Mom look fond and appreciative of one another.

Report cards, a program from a piano recital, pictures at camp, pictures at the age when you wished they weren't being taken, newspaper clippings of his election as president of the Altar Servers at church, as delegate to a Diocesan Youth Council. Pictures of a sixteenth birthday cookout. How "normal" can you get?

Dick (and Bob, too) did date girls. The photos from proms of the '50s are dead-ringers for ones in my own scrapbooks. An eager, gawky, adolescent boy in bow tie, white jacket, and black trousers drapes an arm around a sweet-looking girl wearing a corsage on her wrist and a strapless, frilly evening dress. The inscriptions in the yearbooks have the same earnestness, the same respect for career hopes, the attempts at humor that those in mine do. From boys: "Good luck in college and the ministry. Hope you make bishop in a few years." "A swell guy who's going a long way ..a very sincere kid." "Remember you can't mix women with the Church." "Hope you don't drown baptizing someone."

Pictures from girls are signed "Lovingly." "I'll always remember all the fun we had." "To one of the nicest kids I know." Some of the girls in these pictures must have been necking in the back seat of the car proudly displayed in the scrapbooks. After they'd driven the girls home, some of the boys in the pictures were providing each other sexual warmth in the same back seat.

"What if?" I hear myself asking again and again. What if one of the girls had "gone all the way" with Dick? What if that experience had hooked him emotionally? Then would he have preferred men?

"It is difficult to set these years of normal homosexuality too rigidly," writes the counselor in the book Dick loaned me, "but they seem to fall three or four years before puberty and shortly thereafter for males and a little later, possibly over a longer span for girls." Did most of the boys I knew as a teenager "cap the evening" with some sort of mutual self-gratification? For how many years? I'm not about to ask them.

"It wouldn't have mattered," I can hear Dick and the books reply to my what ifs? "The predisposition to be homosexual was there from the beginning." Perhaps before birth.

The implications are disturbing. Has my husband suppressed homosexual tendencies for years? Do my children? My men friends? My female friends? Do I? "The potential existed, or exists in you," claims the outrageous writer.

That's hard to swallow. I freely embrace my women friends, feel close to them emotionally, but sex doesn't enter my head, would be disgusting if it did. At first Dick was repulsed by the idea, he said, but the result was pleasurable.

I'm not exactly repulsed by the thought of sex between Dick and Bob. In fact, it doesn't interest me...there's so much more about them that does. But for me--and you--to understand and appreciate their relationship, the sexual intimacy can't be ignored.

DICK

“A Real Hunk”

Bob 1955

Rich 1955

By college I certainly knew that I had a strong erotic attraction to some males in my age bracket. Bob and I met as freshmen; our first two years together grew toward an almost inseparable friendship. We double-dated girls whose company we genuinely enjoyed. Why not? To NOT date would have been too odd and would have attracted unhelpful attention. Though he loved cars (and to this day knows just about every model and its mechanical side), he wasn't addicted to professional sports. I found myself enormously attracted to him at every level from Day 1. I still am!

Our third roommate junior year, Jack, told me something funny about Bob when they were out on blind dates with a whole bunch of people. I don’t recall where I was that night.

"You'll never guess what Bob did! The girl he dated said to him, 'Are you gay?' And Bob said, 'Oh, sure. I'm very gay most of the time.'"

Jack nearly died ...had to explain to the blind date that Bob didn't know what the word meant and that no, he wasn't. The girl was probably from New York City and more sophisticated than we were, as was Jack. She'd no doubt seen good-looking men like Bob who were gay.

Bob was a knockout--not effeminate at all, and a real head-turner. Brown wavy hair, looks that could kill, hazel eyes (bedroom eyes at that!), and a sensuous, well-proportioned six feet about 155 pounds. He had an androgynous presence --a stunning man. A girl who squealed "What a rock" from a passing car was right on target.

I thought Bob was a real hunk. Well, over time one thing led to another.

I was upset afterwards. Thought, "That's going to end this friendship. He's going to feel seduced, trashy, and all the rest." But he didn't. We never talked about it much at the time, but that opened the door to repeated love making which was very satisfying for us both. Afterwards, I always felt at ease, fulfilled, connected, falling more and more in love, and in some incomprehensible way committed without reservation.

As expected of us, we continued to date girls now and then. And I saw myself as perhaps sometime marrying a woman and Bob doing the same. That seemed to be required of clergymen and teachers. We had no models of men staying together in a marriage-like life. We still didn't know the word "lover" as applied to gay relationships. We had no examples whatsoever.

I didn't really pursue sexual relations with women, because once Bob and I became sexually active with each other, I was totally content. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the company of women, I didn't feel the need for sexual relationships with them.

Ginny

I dated a wonderful girl named Ginny for special college weekends and now and then at home. She was a very attractive blond woman with a marvelous sense of humor. We sat close in the car, danced close too, but I

sensed she wanted to be with me in a non-sexual way. I really think that I loved her in that sense, too. It was confusing. We’re still in touch; she’s a grandmother now!

A Trinity College dance in 1958 or 59; Bob with a date (Betty?), Rich with Ginny.

****

Only one college classmate, Howard, a close friend to this day, knew about my sexual orientation. During senior year I lied to him when he asked if Bob was gay. We were afraid, rightly so, that Bob would have trouble getting the teaching job he wanted, if anyone suspected, knew, and accidentally said too much to the wrong person. In the section "Teacher as Exemplar" of a 1993 textbook, we find this warning: "...in some places teachers remain vulnerable to dismissal under immorality statutes for such activities as living unmarried with a member of the opposite sex or professed homosexuality. ... Although many cities and counties have specially affirmed the rights of homosexuals in employment and housing, teaching positions are governed by state laws. Only a few states have laws protecting the rights of homosexual teachers." This report also noted that in the State of Washington a teacher lost his job because his homosexuality became known and the school district succeeded in persuading the court that mere knowledge of his lifestyle impaired his teaching effectiveness, that his retention might signal approval of his sexual orientation to his students. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review this case, thereby affirming the lower court decisions dismissing him. Given this reality, the closet was essential in many places right into the 80s, and in some places prudent to the present moment.

Bob tells me that as early as five, he dreamed of men intimately and is sure that was an early sign of his homosexuality. His older, heterosexual brother (no longer living) was married. You'll find a spectrum in a family among sons. There seems to be some random, orientation roulette.

Bob's first sexual experience with a man was when as a high school kid, he was visiting his brother in a college near Manhattan. He went into the city to find a girl to pick up, a self-imposed, obligatory adventure. Instead, he got picked up by a guy his own age who took him to his apartment. He said that he must have frightened him, because afterwards Bob practically leaped down the stairs. The guy came after him, probably fearing that he was going to call a cop. But Bob just kept going, in spite of the invitation to return another time.

“Aching To Understand”

The realization that we were truly gay and therefore "degenerates" in the eyes of society came late in college with the ever growing commitment to Bob as a companion.

Of course, I was afraid of being discovered, of what would happen to my life. That's one reason I had an ulcer. Part was academic pressure, part was my determination to be me - which ran counter to all the norms around me. Somehow I was pulling it off, but with everything compartmentalized - that private area, if exposed, would be my undoing.

In fact, many gay people are overachievers.^[1] We often need to demonstrate such competence
that our excellence gets the focus; ongoing compensation is a common tactic. Justification by good works for acceptance or at least toleration by society.

"Oh, sure, I know Richard Nolan. Look at his accomplishments!" If rumors started, people would hopefully say they were nonsense. "He couldn't possibly be that way. He couldn’t be sick - a degenerate."

I think you can understand, because of the condemnations, rejections, and compartmentalizing, why some gay people commit suicide. Neither Bob nor I have ever had any such inclination. But when we read in the papers that an adolescent boy has killed himself and no one knows why, we’d think, "Oh, my God." Until the 1980s, nothing I had read had connected internal sexual conflicts or hidden lives with teenage and young men's suicides.

The textbooks at the time we were in college, the late 50s, were saying that gay people were mentally ill....that homosexuality was always a failure to mature, an arrested psychological development, an immaturity and a handicap.

I took some psych in college, but not a whole lot, because I didn't need to hear this over and over again. The information didn't depress me. It conflicted and confused me, because it didn't reflect my real feelings...which were more like, "I may be somewhat crazy, but I feel OK within myself." That I was sick and immature just didn't seem to me to ring true.

__________________________

^[1]A word here from Mimi. Dick was designated one of 25 "outstanding seniors" by his college's student senate. He was president of two undergraduate clubs, and a manager of two teams. A college Personnel Services report notes his "warm sociability and conscientiousness," characterizes him as "trusting, responsive to social values, self-confident, self-controlled, poised, active, resourceful, serious, and orderly." Bishop Bradford Hastings of Connecticut once commented to Dick that he had noticed that the gay clergy are, for the most part, over-achievers .

When I look back on the negative aspects of self-discovery, resigning myself to being at least somewhat sick, I'm glad I didn't despair over it. But you know, a gay person should not have had to accept that he's mentally ill. That's what the American Psychiatric Association said in 1973, when it removed homosexuality from that category (14 years after we graduated from college).

****

At some point, probably early in my junior year, I did ask a college advisor to recommend a psychiatrist "for personal reasons." I needed some clarification, some reassurance. He was a chubby, restless man and seemed impatient as he perched on a chair behind his big desk.

"What's the problem?" he asked abruptly.

"I'm having very strong, homosexual feelings," I said, still terribly embarrassed.

He must have been more advanced than the textbooks I had read. "I'm asking you, what's the problem?" he repeated.

Here was this psychiatrist not perceiving that there was a difficulty, which there must be if I were even partially crazy.

"Are you active or passive?" I didn't know what he meant. Was "active" out prowling the streets, a worse category than passive?

"Passive," I decided without knowing what I meant.

"Then what's the big deal?"

"I'm thinking of going to seminary."

"That's a mistake," the psychiatrist informed me. "You'll have to lead a hidden life. Be a social worker or something more acceptable, if you want to continue homosexual activity."

I didn't want to hear that, because I really wanted to go to seminary and be ordained.

Within five minutes the psychiatrist had me out of his office. I left very disconcerted, because I had expected to be treated for something or given clues how to combine ordained ministry with being gay. "Here's this quack," I figured, "who implies there's absolutely nothing wrong with me." It was all the more confusing. To a kid who was aching to understand, he'd said in effect, "You're all right. Why are you wasting my time?"

The next summer I had a job as a campus messenger. It was a way to live on my own. At lunch time nobody was in the records office when I was delivering mail, and the files were unlocked. So, I looked in my own folder.

Inside was a slip a paper. "Nolan referred to psychiatrist," it said and nothing else. No explanation that I had initiated the appointment. Nothing indicating that this was a young man who wanted to explore some fairly

benign personal issues. Anyone coming across it might wonder whether I'd tried to knife my roommate.

So with great pleasure, and no regrets to this day, I stole that unsigned slip of paper.

Later I thought, "Bob and I are probably mentally ill to some extent, but our neuroses complement each other and we'll have to live with that." As a drama professor said when I ran into him at a gay bar years later. "This thing we're afflicted with." I think that he died believing he was “afflicted.”

“Salvation”

So how could I be making the decision to prepare for ordination? Was there a sense of guilt, that one didn't go with the other?

At some significant level I had a wholeness about me. There was an integrity within, so that I felt, "OK, I'll be a good priest. I’ll just have to keep this defect hidden."

Was homosexuality sinful? Perhaps. But I figured priests had their sins, too. The sinfulness was more of a church - human - category. I did not feel estranged from God, judged by God, or alienated from God. If someone had said to me then, "Your relationship with God is breached because of your homosexuality," I would have said, "This is a sin in the eyes of the church people, not in the eyes of God."

Something amusing happened when I was being examined by the diocesan psychologist for one of the standard, pre-seminary steps. He asked, "When were you first attracted to the ordained ministry?"

"Even in elementary school," I told him earnestly, "I wanted to be a nun." Nun!! I meant to say "priest." Boy, did I turn red!

The psychologist laughed and said, "We won't put that in the report. There are some indications of homosexuality, but we won't put that in either. There are things better not said." What he meant was that he knew damn well as a psychologist that a lot of Episcopal (and other) clergy are gay or bisexual, but you don't admit those things to diocesan committees and bishops; they don't want to know about them. To hear this from the person examining me for my mental health! He was willing to say, "We won't mention it." Maybe I wasn't sick after all.

****

Connecticut Valley Hospital

Although I had tried to get out of it, I had clinical pastoral education toward the end of seminary, during the summer of 1962, at the Connecticut Valley Hospital. Part of the process included being counseled, so we'd be better at helping others. I was terrified that the supervisor would somehow discover my private life and blackball me from ordination. However, Harold Yarrington, my chaplain supervisor, was an exceptionally understanding person and pastor.

One day about half way through the program I was meeting with him alone in a big seminar room -- straight chairs, large table, subdued lighting. We were sitting diagonally across from one another.

All of a sudden, I found myself self-disclosing to Harold. It was tremendously moving to me to let myself do so to someone whose judgment could affect my whole career and life. I began to cry...soon I was sobbing uncontrollably.

"That's all right. That's all right. It's all right to cry. Take your time." This warm, gentle, unflappable man stayed professionally in his chair, but I felt touched by his voice and manner. He had not in any way pushed me into my revelation, had not manipulated the disclosure from me. It was OK to cry, to utterly lose composure for what I was sure would be hours, and he was not passing judgment on my sexual orientation and relationship with Bob. The sobbing was such a catharsis, such a release from the emotional overload I'd been building up to.

At the end of the 12-weeks, Harold gave me a super evaluation. Then at age 25, this was the first time I had been evaluated both personally and professionally and, unexpectedly, had not been demeaned, patronized, excluded or rejected. I didn't know this could be possible. To feel accepted by a person I respected was remarkable, extraordinary!

At the same time, in my desperation to pull things together, and for reasons I'm not quite sure of, that summer I began to understand the significance of my baptism. Most fundamentally I am a unique child of God. Everything that I do, all the qualities I have - including my sexual orientation - are lived within the context of my baptismal identity. That rebirth dovetailed with Harold's affirmation of me as a wholesome person. And the mentally ill category began to slip aside, even though more than another decade would pass before the American Psychiatric Association would formally agree.

At this font in Christ Episcopal Church, Waltham, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1937, a Service of Baptism was held for Richard Thomas Nolan.

I think at this time the literature was changing, even the psychology texts. "Homosexuality is not in and of itself a mental illness," psychiatrists were beginning to say. So first I experienced the painful, negative self-discovery that I was gay and therefore sick, and then a kind of salvation from that negativity.

****

My 1963 ordination to the diaconate was in my home parish, Christ Church, Waltham. We really did it up well....at my request the bishop wore festive red instead of the usual low-church black, and the church was packed with relatives and friends, including Bob and his parents. Episcopal nuns were there and a representative from Richard Cardinal Cushing (a real shocker in this largely Roman Catholic region). I'd had the nerve to write and ask if he would send someone as an ecumenical gesture, since I'd gone to the Dominican elementary school, and he was a sort of low-church Cardinal kind enough to comply and write me a nice letter besides.

Although I was concurrently beginning to work on a Ph.D., the ordination Service was the culmination of so much I had been aiming for personally and professionally. There was something enormously wonderful and awesome about it, plus the relief of "Thank God! In spite of all that could have exploded, I've made it."

The Ordering of Richard Thomas Nolan to be a Deacon
Saturday, June 29, 1963 at 10:30 O'Clock

Mount Trinity Academy

Two years later (rather than one, by my decision) on the way to St. John’s Church in Arlington, to be ordained a priest, I drove by my Roman Catholic elementary school – Mount Trinity Academy - high atop a hill surrounded by a lush golf course with a magnificent view of the distant Boston hub. Some nuns were strolling around outside, so I stopped, got out, and mentioned nostalgically, "I went to school year here in the 1940s, and right now I'm on my way to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church."

They were very gracious. (Maybe later they offered several novenas for my soul!) It meant a lot to me to have that moment with them, a sort of appreciative closure.

The high point of this second ordination was the laying-on-of-hands. Not just the bishop, but all the priests present place their hands on your head to bless and acknowledge you. Their collective hands were heavy; I hadn't expected that. Among them was my former rector who had baptized me, presented me for Confirmation, for ordination to the diaconate, and now for ordination as a priest, too.

I was very aware that at both ordinations, it was the same Richard who went in and the same one who came out, apparently no more graceful or spiritual. I was Richard, a child of God; the ordinations had conferred on this child of God certain sacred responsibilities, but not new identities.

****

This straight, square woman is torn between queasiness of what I'm hearing and sadness at Dick’s pain when he definitely knew he was gay. Is he exaggerating when he says that homosexuality was considered a form of mental illness? Take a look at a 1948 (when Dick and Bob were eleven years old) textbook by a Harvard lecturer and director of that University's Psychological Clinic. Homosexuality is discussed in Chapter 11 which presented "Delinquent Behavior and Related Disorders: Delinquency and Criminal Behavior. Psychopathetic Personality. Deviant Sexual Behavior. Chronic Alcoholism." Homosexuality is found in the section "Deviant Sexual Behavior," which begins with a reference to delinquents and psychopaths. Immediately after "Homosexuality" is "Sexual Perversions Leading to Crimes of Violence."^[2]

"What company I keep!" wrote Dick in the margin. It gets worse. No wonder Dick thought he was sick ....or psychologically impeded. The most trusted presentations on sexuality were clear condemnations of homosexuality. In no way a variation on the continuum from heterosexual to bi-sexual to homosexual, same-sex orientations were presented as condemnatory as those held by virtually all religious persuasions one would run into within the United States. Is it any wonder that gay men and women subjected to such “knowledge” and “wisdom” might have major issues with their self-esteem?

"For the most part the sexual tendencies of children are such as would be called perverted if they persisted into adult life," wrote the Harvard psychologist. "An expensive process of relearning goes on at puberty.... Deviant sexual behavior is thus conceived as a developmental abnormality."^[3]

Homosexuality "is a neurotic disease," agreed a world-famous psychoanalyst in 1956 (when Dick and Bob were 19).^[4] Did attitudes shift in the turbulent sixties, I wondered? Not according to these doomsayers.

Homosexuality "often reflects fear or hatred of the opposite sex... [a gay person's] personality organization is to some degree warped and his sex life unsatisfactory....Because such deviations [homosexuality was paired with

___________________________

^{^[2]}Robert W. White, The Abnormal Personality (N.Y., 1948), p. 407.

^{^[3]}Ibid., p. 408.

^{^[4]}Edmund Bergler, M.D., Homosexuality: Disease Or Way of Life? (N.Y., 1956), p. 13.

voyeurism] are usually deeply imbedded in the individual's character structure, they require prolonged psychotherapy aimed at a general revision of personality."^[5]

Homosexuality was indeed a "mental illness" until in 1973 the dramatic pronouncement of the American Psychiatric Association brought Dick "salvation."

Dick told me of a revealing and comical exchange between a psychologist and a scholar friend of his.

Psychologist: "All the gay people I've ever seen professionally have been

badly disturbed."

Scholar: "Aren't all the people you see professionally badly disturbed?"

Psychologist: "I never thought of it that way before."

****

I am horrified by what civilizations have inflicted on millions of gay men and women throughout the centuries – with no effective help from the Churches. As mentioned above, how could any homosexual individual grow up with a positive self-image? With such negativity and without public, positive role models, how could any relationships endure? No wonder hopelessness dominated the many gay youths who have killed themselves! No wonder it seemed all right to victimize and discriminate against homosexual people!

___________________________

^{^[5]}Joseph Stone and Joseph Church, Childhood and Adolescence (N.Y., 1961), p. 550. In the 5^th edition (1984), the only reference to homosexuality is on page 520: “Some adolescents experiment with homosexuality, but most end up firmly heterosexual. Note, however, that in certain settings – sexually segregated boarding schools, the military, prison – homosexuality may be accepted as standard practice.” Not according to any headmaster I know of! Certainly not according to the Department of Defense. Where did these authors of such a widely used textbook (used in an undergraduate course Dick and Bob completed about 1957) get this information?!